


Unfinished Business

by subtropicalStenella



Category: Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: ALL THE ANGST, Bly wouldn't have handled it well, Everything Hurts, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Look we all know what happens to Aayla, SUFFER WITH ME, So much angst, Suicide, The Author Regrets Everything, The result is angst, Tragedy, star-crossed lovers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-26
Updated: 2017-05-26
Packaged: 2018-11-05 01:39:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 773
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11003301
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/subtropicalStenella/pseuds/subtropicalStenella
Summary: Bly doesn't handle the results of Order 66 well. None of them do.





	Unfinished Business

It takes time to arrange. Time and planning and a lot of careful misdirection.

Easier than it could have been, because they let him keep his command, if not his name. Why bother training a new Marshal Commander when the one you have on hand is perfectly, flawlessly obedient, and not even in the deliberately obnoxious, excessively literal, “letter of the law” way many of his men ascribed to, fighting their chips to the bitter end. He followed orders. Perfectly. The Empire owned him now, he knew and acknowledged that. Therefore he had the complete trust of his irritated, overworked, and underpaid new officers.

That meant he had a little leverage in where the 327th was deployed. So when a Rebel cell popped up on Felucia, he brought it to his new General’s attention. The 327th knew Felucia better than anyone else. They  _ took  _ Felucia. They should be the unit sent to reinforce the standing garrison, take it back for the Empire. If not for those reasons then the fact that if Rebels had popped back up on planet, clearly they hadn't done their jobs properly, and  _ that  _ could not stand. They needed to finish the job.

His General pulls some strings. Whether it was genuine desire to retake Felucia for the Empire or for her own reputation, he doesn't particularly care.  They make planetfall just a few weeks later.

Getting himself on the patrol roster takes more effort than getting on planet. His General wants him by her side at all times. Her perfect soldier. Still. He insists he has unfinished business on planet, that it  _ eats  _ at him, and she finds his persistence endearing rather than annoying. She makes him take his helmet off sometimes. She likes his pretty face, all his pretty gold and blue markings under the blank Stormie white, and lets him join the roster with a smile and a tap on his nose.

He doesn't pick  _ that _ patrol immediately. He lets the assignment rotation bring him around naturally. It's not like he has to search to find what he's looking for. The place is burned into his memory by a hundred thousand nightmares both waking and not.

He almost  _ doesn't _ find what he's looking for, in the end. There’s not a lot left. The place is exactly as he remembers, though the blaster burns on the trees have begun to scar over with new growth, the bright mossy undergrowth restored from the damage of hundreds of durasteel boots.

All the soft tissues are gone, stripped away by scavengers, some of the pieces dragged off under the brush to be leisurely gnawed on. There's enough to identify, withered flesh faded to a dusty gray over pale, pale bone amid rotten and crumbling letheris. He would sit down, but his chip won't let him. Understandable. A soldier didn't just interrupt his patrol to take in the sights, even if it is a beautiful view. A clifftop panorama of the sprawling jungle in all its luminous, phosphorescent glory.

A noise behind him lets him unholster his sidearm. It's just an animal, a small one at that, but it doesn't matter. It's excuse enough.

“Sorry it took me so long, sir.”

 

-

 

The distant  _ crack  _ of blasterfire has her storming out of her shuttle and into the mass of silent troopers watching the horizon, standing at attention. The acting Captain of the unit is in there somewhere

“Twenty-two, what in the  _ hells  _ was that?” she snaps.

No less than thirty helmets turn in her direction, answering in eerie unison. “Blasterfire, sir.”

She suppresses a shudder. “ _ Captain  _ Zero-Zero-Two-Two, damn it. And  _ obviously  _ it was blasterfire, but what and  _ why? _ Your report said there were no threats in the area.”

A clone nearby answers, in their typical clipped, emotionless fashion. “Not a threat, sir. Small caliber. Single shot.”

Oh  _ hells.  _ The inexplicable, uncalled-for assembly, their silent, rapt attention on the horizon. Not just the horizon, but a specific point. The men on the far edges of the group have turned their helmets ever so slightly towards the center line. She's heard about this behavior.

“What unit was on patrol in that sector, Captain?”

“Aurek, sir.”

The Command unit.  _ Fuck.  _ She sighs and squeezes the bridge of her nose.  _ Emperor _ this was going to be a bureaucratic  _ nightmare _ . It was hard enough getting new  _ grunts  _ issued, let alone a new  _ Commander.  _ Damn it. She'd  _ liked  _ that one. He’d  _ cooperated. _

“Captain, get these troopers back to the main base. See to it that we don't lose any more, today?”

“Yes, sir.”

_ Ughhhhhhh. _ “I don't mean  _ just  _ today, Captain. I mean in general.”

“Yes, sir.” 

  
Bloody  _ clones. _


End file.
